{"id":24768,"date":"2025-04-28T13:43:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T18:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/?p=24768"},"modified":"2025-04-28T13:43:43","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T18:43:43","slug":"baylor-acrobatics-tumbling-wins-10th-straight-national-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2025\/04\/baylor-acrobatics-tumbling-wins-10th-straight-national-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Baylor Acrobatics &#038; Tumbling wins 10th (!!!!!!!!!!) straight national title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-24769\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/acro-champs-apr25.jpg\" alt=\"Baylor Acrobatics &amp; Tumbling celebrates the championship as Coach Mulkey holds the trophy\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/acro-champs-apr25.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/acro-champs-apr25-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/acro-champs-apr25-1024x512.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/acro-champs-apr25-768x384.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/sports\/acrobatics-tumbling\">Baylor Acrobatics &amp; Tumbling<\/a> won its <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/news\/2025\/4\/26\/acrobatics-tumbling-no-1-a-t-earns-10th-ncata-championship-title.aspx\">tenth &#8212; TENTH!!!!!!!!! &#8212; straight national title<\/a>! The win extends a run that dates back to 2015 (there was no championship in 2020 due to COVID). Over those 11 seasons, head coach Felecia Mulkey&#8217;s squad has gone a mind-boggling 110-2, including a current 50-meet winning streak.<\/p>\n<p>For context: The only longer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/news\/ncaa\/article\/2013-12-14\/most-consecutive-national-titles\">NCAA D-1 championship streaks<\/a> are in track and field, where the Arkansas men won 12 straight indoor titles from 1984-95, and the LSU women won 11 straight outdoor championships from 1987-97. (To be clear, Baylor&#8217;s current run is an NCATA streak, not an NCAA streak, because acrobatics and tumbling is currently classified as an <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/4645470\/2023\/06\/29\/acro-tumbling-college-sports\/\">NCAA Emerging Sport<\/a> while it works its way toward full-fledged NCAA status.)<\/p>\n<p>Not surprisingly, Baylor also cleaned up when it came to <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/news\/2025\/4\/27\/acrobatics-tumbling-a-t-earns-end-of-year-awards-from-ncata.aspx\">individual honors<\/a>, led by NCATA Athlete of the Year Payton Washington. Washington is the ninth Bear since 2015 to be named national A&amp;T athlete of the year &#8212; an incredible accomplishment for any student-athlete, but especially one who&#8217;s been through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/olympics\/story\/_\/id\/41972146\/payton-washington-baylor-acrobatics-tumbling-cheerleaders-shooting\">all that Washington has endured<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bears also won NCATA Specialist of the Year (Jordan Gruendler), Freshman of the Year (Leavy McDonald), and Coach of the Year (Mulkey). Washington, Gruendler, McDonald and Emily Bott were also named All-Americans, while Gruendler added All-Academic honors, for good measure.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Something for ya before Event Finals, HIGHLIGHTS!<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SicEm?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#SicEm<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bwEotIzwnm\">pic.twitter.com\/bwEotIzwnm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Baylor A&amp;T (@BaylorAcroTumb) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BaylorAcroTumb\/status\/1916492531644145751?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 27, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>What carries a team at <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BaylorAcroTumb\/status\/1916492531644145751\">this level<\/a>, when you&#8217;ve won so many years in a row?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really think it\u2019s the senior leadership,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/wacotrib.com\/sports\/college\/baylor\/article_eee16e61-153e-4532-88ec-12d442568eaf.html\">Mulkey told the <em>Waco Tribune-Herald<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThis group of kiddos, they\u2019ve been through a lot since they\u2019ve been here. They\u2019ve seen a lot. And I think every class has. But they stormed within themselves, they\u2019ve come out stronger on the other end. They really decided this year that it\u2019s team first, it\u2019s we before me. And they led this team like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The win is Baylor Athletics&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/sports\/2018\/5\/16\/trads-natl-championships-html.aspx\">16th national championship<\/a> overall. In addition to A&amp;T\u2019s 10 wins, Baylor has also won team national titles in men\u2019s basketball (2021), women\u2019s basketball (2005, 2012 &amp; 2019), men\u2019s tennis (2004) and equestrian (2012).<\/p>\n<p>Sic \u2019em, Baylor Acrobatics &amp; Tumbling!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday, Baylor Acrobatics &amp; Tumbling won its tenth &#8212; TENTH!!!!!!!!! &#8212; straight national title! The win extends a run that dates back to 2015 (there was no championship in 2020 due to COVID). Over those 11 seasons, head coach Felecia Mulkey&#8217;s squad has gone a mind-boggling 110-2, including a current 50-meet winning streak. For [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","category-honors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}